No Filter For Young Performing Digital Natives

Budding young performing arts students from the 'Australian School of Performing Arts, Film and Television' (ASPAFTV) will light the QPAC stage with their end of year performance this month – 'Digital Natives #nofilter'.

ASPAFTV Founding Directors Amanda Hardwick and Renata Einhaus say they are so proud of their students who have worked so passionately this year. “The courage it takes to stand up in front of peers, families and friends at such a tender age is awe inspiring.”

Amanda Hardwick, Talia Rowley, Jackie Murtagh and Seth Collier

Taking on the world of social media, 'Digital Natives #nofilter' gives the students opportunity to examine and explore the role that social media plays in their lives, and encourages students to question the disparity between their real and online self. Three groups of students (aged 7-17) have collaborated within their class to decide the concept, characters and general narrative and three plays will show different situations that can come from the use of social media.

The first play, 'Confessions Of A Digital Native' centres around six young people as they attempt to navigate their way through the perils of adolescence and how they use social media for escapism. The second play, 'Techagedon' is set within a special school for the technologically advanced and sees 12 genius students – who have had no face-to-face human interaction, ever – forced to communicate in person when a blackout occurs. And the third play, 'Limbo' highlights the role that personal branding plays in social media and features characters who will do whatever it takes to maintain their brand in a bid to remain current, interesting and popular.

These original works will be brought together to show the disparity between our real self and our online self is as complicated as it is contrived. “We hope to remind our children, ourselves and the audience that who we are is enough,” Amanda says. “These wonderful young dreamers dare to tread where many of us fear to go and we want to celebrate this success by giving them access to perform on a professional and public platform.”



'Digital Natives #nofilter' will play at QPAC, 13 December.